Few things are as dissapointing as cutting into what you planned on being a succulent, juicy __insert your favorite cut of poultry, beef, or pork here__, and finding that you (or worse, someone you paid) overcooked the meat into a lifeless and dry slab of "tough luck, kid." It's upsetting, but it happens to all of us. And here's the secret that kitchen pros know: An overcooked cut isn't a lost cause. So the next time you step away from the grill for just a few minutes too long, here's how to remedy the your exceptionally well done meat. Show
1. Slather it with a sauce.While this won’t undo your kitchen mistake, it WILL add a little moisture back into the meat. Use a basting brush (or one of these clever hacks) to generously slather a sauce onto that over-cooked chicken breast can make a world of difference. Go for a barbecue sauce, honey mustard sauce, pesto sauce... whatever feels right to you. 2. Put it in a soup.Soaking overcooked meat in broth can bring a little moisture back into it, which means soup is, as usual, a perfect dinner-saving solutuon. Keep in mind, you don’t have to go homemade here—store-bought soup will save you in a pinch. Cut or shred the meat into bite-sized pieces and gently heat in a pot of your favorite veggie or noodle soup. 3. Hide it in a sandwich.Surrounded by lettuce, veggies, and good bread, you won’t even notice that steak is a little tough. Also relevant: mayonnaise. So much mayonnaise. All of the mayonnaise. Seriously, tuck that overcooked protein into the context of a custom Reuben, panini, club, sloppy Joe, or whatever sandwich floats your boat, and you'll be good to go. 4. Definitely don’t reheat it.Got leftovers? Eat them straight outta the fridge. Reheating them will only cook them further, making them more dry and tough. Shredded chicken salad, anyone? Remember—all the mayonnaise, people. Watch: How to Make Greek Chicken Salad 2 Ways How to avoid the problem in the first place:Buy bone-in cuts.Bone-in chicken thighs take a bit longer to cook than boneless, skinless chicken breasts—but they have a lot more flavor and stay moist. Same goes for pork chops. Cook with the skin on.Even if you don’t eat it, keeping the skin on during roasting, grilling, or searing helps naturally keep the meat moist…without any added fat. Cook with fat.Basting with butter and roasting with plenty of olive oil helps to ensure that the meat will stay moist. This is why chefs like to confit meat; the process of cooking animal protein in plenty of fat has an incredibly succulent result. Want to taste the magic of leveraging fat to your advatage? Just try this Pan-Seared New York Strip—it exemplifies the beauty of butter basting in a most delicious way. We’ve all asked the question at some point: Why is my chicken rubbery? Here, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to keep rubbery chickens off your dinner table and out of your life. If you’re frustrated at your failed attempts to avoid rubbery chicken, it’s probably time for a little help. What can be so confusing is that you may normally have a smooth chicken cooking experience and turn out a fine chicken dish again and again. But then, suddenly, there it is again — rubbery chicken! Why?! Let’s finally demystify the rubbery chicken. Table of Contents
Why is My Chicken Rubbery?By now, you may be able to prepare a dozen different chicken recipes without even Googling about it anymore. So, what makes chicken only sometimes rubbery? There are multiple possibilities for the cause of your rubbery chicken surprises — and — wait for it — there may be different causes at different times. There are two temporal possibilities for the cause of a chicken to be rubbery: It was already rubbery before it arrived at your house, or it became rubbery after it got there. Either way, there are simple, easy solutions to avoid some of these problems. Others are not within your control. Fortunately, in the majority of cases, you can prevent a rubbery chicken from appearing. NOTE: There are some recommendations to beat and squeeze the larger parts until they appear to be the same thicknesses as the smaller parts. But, this is ill-advised. The density of the meat remains the same, regardless of how much you pound on it, so the cooking time differential is negligible between a chicken breast before or after it has been hammered. Tenderizing chicken by pounding it can soften the meat, for purposes of capturing the right consistency for various dishes, but it does not significantly alter the necessary cooking time. Nobody should be forced to abandon a lovely dinner table and head for carry out due to rubbery chicken. So, here are the known reasons why the problem can occur, and solutions to help you prevent a rubbery chicken from ever again becoming an unpleasant surprise at meal time. Here’s a video on how you can avoid mistakes while cooking chicken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QBqFLHuYrQVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: 6 mistakes to avoid when cooking chicken! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QBqFLHuYrQ) Causes and Solutions for Rubbery ChickenThere are a number of reasons why chicken sometimes has a rubbery, unpleasant texture and does not taste good to eat. Here are the most common causes of rubbery chicken and the easy solutions for each one: OvercookingOne of the most common causes of rubbery chicken is overcooking. Overcooking by either frying or baking can cause the chicken to become hard to chew, because the protein fibers in the meat lose moisture and elasticity from being exposed to high heat for an excessive length of time. Here are some easy solutions for ensuring proper cooking time and even cooking throughout all the various sizes of a chicken’s parts: Frying — How to avoid rubbery fried chickenWhen frying chicken, the poultry should be cooked quickly using high heat. Of course, chicken parts are not all the same thickness, so it is a key challenge in preparing the chicken to make sure that all parts are cooked evenly throughout. Removing smaller parts that are done faster from grease that still has uncooked thicker parts still cooking in it is not an option. Why? Because that action would be a health hazard, due to the high potential for cross-contamination from the grease that still contains chicken parts that are not fully cooked. So, Use one of these options to ensure even cooking of all chicken parts:
Baking — How to avoid rubbery baked chickenHarmful microbes can exist in undercooked chicken meat. The internal temperature of a chicken must reach 165 F in order to ensure that all potential health risks from such organisms have been eliminated by cooking. When cooked to the correct temperature for the correct amount of time, the chicken will be tender and moist. But, baking at temperatures too high will cause the water in poultry to become depleted during cooking and result in chicken that is rubbery or spongy. But, there’s no way to determine if chicken is fully cooked inside by just looking at the exterior skin. To confirm that your chicken is fully cooked, you can either:
Grilling — How to avoid rubbery grilled chickenWith grilling chicken, you have the advantage of greater control over which chicken parts are exposed to higher or lower heat on the wide grilling surface, and you can take parts out at separate time intervals as the smaller parts are finished cooking and you’re waiting for the thicker parts to become fully done. Still, overcooking and undercooking chicken are arguably more common problems in grilling than in any other method of cooking, often leaving grilled chicken dry and/or rubbery. Regulating heat in a grill, even a gas grill, and especially in charcoal grill is more challenging than cooking on a stove burner or in a kitchen oven. The solution? Focus on these fundamental instructions for grilling chicken:
This is really the only solution to ensuring that some pieces are not overcooked and burned on the skin and others are not undercooked and unsafe to eat. In either case, you’re likely to have rubbery chicken that is inedible just based on bad texture and flavor if you do not pay full attention to managing heat under chicken while grilling.
Here’s a delicious grilled chicken recipe you can’t miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWXlmAeqoUEVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: QUICK GRILLED CHICKEN | TASTY GRILLED CHICKEN RECIPE | GRILLED CHICKEN RECIPE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWXlmAeqoUE) Boiling — How to avoid rubbery boiled chicken in soupPeople often cook chicken much longer than necessary when making soup. Remember that the interior of the meat pieces must be 165 F in order to be fully cooked. The pieces also must not be overcooked. Even in soup, under or overcooking causes rubbery chicken. Here’s the easy solution:
How Do You Soften Overcooked Chicken?If your baked chicken is overcooked, you may be able to make it more tender by saturating it with broth Slice the overcooked chicken into thinner pieces, and place them in a baking dish. Pour hot chicken broth from the bottom of the pan you used to bake the chicken. Or use packaged broth, if there is not enough broth remaining from baking the chicken. Heat the chicken and broth in a preheated oven for ten to fifteen minutes at low temperature. Serve promptly. UndercookingUndercooked meat is not only naturally rubbery in texture, it’s a serious health hazard. Fortunately, it’s a pretty straightforward concept to avoid undercooking chicken. Just remember that the internal temperature of all chicken parts must reach 165 F, to ensure that it is cooked fully. To ensure that your chicken is fully cooked you can use one of these two options:
Insufficient MoistureA lack of sufficient moisture in chicken can be due to overcooking, but sometimes a chicken can just show up at your house already rubbery. Chicken is a very lean poultry. The low fat property of this fowl can cause the meat to be too dry. Moisture can become depleted in chicken at any time. You can’t pump moisture back into it. So, what to do? To help prevent chicken from losing too much moisture prior to cooking:
NOTE: When shopping for chicken or other poultry, it makes sense to ask about farming conditions in which the animal was raised. Chicken that is better fed and generally managed is more likely to have a better meat texture and flavor. Woody Chicken BreastMaybe you have performed all the above recommended steps for getting the rubbery texture out of your chicken, including cooking it properly, brining it, etc., but nothing seems to be working. It’s still rubbery! In that case, you may have a chicken with woody breasts. This is a condition in which the muscle fibers of the meat are too tight, sometimes even knotted in texture. There is some debate about what causes the condition. Some believe it’s due to a genetic problem, others suggest that it is more prevalent among organically grown chickens. Other chicken parts are not as prone to this condition. Woody chicken breast affects about 5 to 10 percent of chickens in the U.S. Even with food inspections, sometimes chickens with this condition are sold in the meat department of grocery stores. Chicken in this condition is not harmful to your health, but it’s rubbery and not ideal for eating. How can you avoid buying woody chicken breasts?
White StripingWhite Striping refers to a sort of wood grain appearance across the surface of chicken breasts in the same direction as the grain of the muscle tissue. It’s a problem of meat quality. White striping reduces nutritional value and taste quality. It causes chicken meat to be tougher and higher in fat. The precise cause of white striping is so-far unclear. However, it is believed that growers’ efforts to produce more robust animals have led to some chickens with increased and excessive muscle density. How can you avoid buying chicken with white striping in it?
Is Rubbery Chicken OK to Eat?Rubbery chicken is generally safe to eat unless the cause of the rubbery texture is undercooking. Now You KnowEquipped with all your new knowledge of how to avoid the dreaded rubbery chicken, you should be able to enjoy many delicious and nutritious chicken dishes for years to come. So dazzle your friends with your culinary skills around the preparation of ideally tender and scrumptious chicken, and live the good life, free of rubbery chicken. How do you recover rubbery chicken?To compensate for the dry, rubbery texture, make a sauce that you can serve on your chicken to add moisture and flavor. Go with a creamy Alfredo sauce, BBQ sauce, or soy-based sauce, and — *chef's kiss* — you won't even notice the rubbery consistency.
Why are my chicken breasts rubbery?Overcooked chicken can have a rubbery texture because when the protein fibers are exposed to the heat for too long, they lose their elasticity. If you've ever overcooked a piece of chicken before, you'll know that it loses most of its moisture this way, too.
Can you fix overcooked chewy chicken?1. Slather it with a sauce. While this won't undo your kitchen mistake, it WILL add a little moisture back into the meat. Use a basting brush (or one of these clever hacks) to generously slather a sauce onto that over-cooked chicken breast can make a world of difference.
How do you fix a tough chicken breast?Shred it and warm with stock
Chicken stock or broth is the best liquid to impart flavor and moisture back into dry chicken. Warm your broth over a medium heat until it is hot but not boiling. Place your shredded chicken in the pan until it is barely covered with enough broth to coat the chicken.
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